the 10-20-11 Penny Press

Penny Press
Nevada, USA
Volume 9 Number 6 OCTOBER 20, 2011
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 2
www.pennypressnv.com
Penny
Press
Logotype
Pointedlymad
licensed from:
Rich Gast
Credits:
Publisher and Editor: Contributing Editors:
Fred Weinberg
Floyd Brown
Al Thomas
Doug French
Chuck Muth
John Getter
Pat Choate
Tom Mitchell
The Penny Press is published weekly by
Far West Radio LLC All Contents © Penny Press 2011
Letters to the Editor are encouraged. They should be
sent to our offices at 335 W. 4th Street Winnemucca, NV
891445 They can also be emailed to: pennypresslv@
gmail.com No unsigned or unverifiable letters will be
printed.
702-418-0433
Fax: 702-920-8215
Penny Press
WINNEMUCCA, NEVADA
16 PAGES
VOLUME 9 NUMBER 6
OCTOBER 20, 2011
Smoked Bear: No Fuel No Fire
By THOMAS MITCHELL
Contributing Editor
Smoked Bear: Before 1980 less
than 25,000 acres burned in Nevada
wildfires each year. Now that
number’s gone up to 600,000. That’s
an increase of 24 times as many
acres.
Commentary
Jimmy: That’s a lot of rabbits and
deer and birds. What can we do?
Smoked Bear: Write and call the
Forest Service. Ask them to reduce
the wildfire fuel on the land.
Jimmy: What’s fuel?
Smoked Bear: It’s grass and plants
that cattle and sheep used to eat.
The Forest Service could reduce the
fuel by allowing cattle and sheep to burned.
The creator of Smoked Bear,
graze before it burns.
— ­
Radio commercial at Elko attorney Grant Gerber, grew
up in a ranching family and has
SmokedBear.com
worked on countless land and water
That’s no typo. The protagonist use issues across the country for
of this and six other radio spots decades.
“One morning I woke up:
being played for the past two years
in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico Smoked Bear! Just change one
letter,” Gerber says of his cartoon
is Smoked Bear, not Smokey.
And his message is not that alter ego, who is depicted on the
“only you can prevent wildfires” — website SmokedBear.com as a
since more than half of wildfires in muscular, shovel-wielding bruin
Nevada are started by lightning — in tattered jeans and scorched fur
but that increased grazing by cattle with a squirrel on his shoulder, a
and sheep on public lands could cottontail under one arm and a quail
decrease the size of wildfires and on the other.
In December 2009 Gerber
the number of wild animals killed by
them — probably well more than 1.5 started running radio spots featuring
Smoked Bear and estimates as many
million this year alone.
More than 500,000 acres have as a half a million people have heard
burned in Nevada this year and in the ads and the message of saving
2006 more than 1.3 million acres wildlife by allowing grazing on land
controlled by the Forest Service,
the Bureau of Land Management
and other federal agencies —
approximately 90 percent of Nevada.
“Pre-1950, so far,” Gerber says,
“we have been unable to find even
one instance of a large rangeland
wildfire.”
Gerber estimates the number of
cattle in Nevada is down by well
over 50 percent and the number of
sheep is down by over 95 percent
from the early 1900s, with the
biggest reductions coming since the
1950s, coinciding with the increased
size of fires.
Coincidentally, the Nevada
Department of Wildlife estimates
the deer population in Nevada was
nearly 250,000 in the 1950s, but
due to various factors, including
wildfire, the population has dropped
to less than 100,000.
Continued on page4
The Conservative Weekly
Voice Of Las Vegas
Inside:
Smelly And Naked
Not A Change Agent
See Editorial Page 6
Penny Wisdom
You can't stay in your corner
of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have
to go to them sometimes.
—Pooh's Little Instruction
Book
FLOYD BROWN
FRED WEINBERG
DOUG FRENCH
AL THOMAS
DISTRICT MAPS
CHUCK MUTH
PETS OF THE WEEK
PAGE 5
PAGE 6
PAGE 7
PAGE 10
PAGE 11
PAGE 14
PAGE 15
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 4
Continued from page 3
That's Mr. Bear To You, Mr. Ranger
But Jeanne Higgins, the forest supervisor for the Humbolt-Toiyabe
National Forest, says the problem is a little more complicated than just
reducing fuel by grazing.
“A lot of livestock grazing is concentrated in areas where the grass is
green and there’s water sources. So, it is possible grazing can reduce the
amount of fuel if it is targeted,” she says.
While some have blamed the increase in fires on invasive non-native
cheatgrass, which crowds out native foliage in the spring and tends to dry
out in the fall, Higgins says the Forest Service is actually experimenting
with using sheep to reduce the cheatgrass in the Carson City area.
“Both the Forest Service and the BLM have increased staffing of fire
personnel the last 10-plus years to try to increase our success with what
we call initial attack,” Higgins said, a point Gerber readily concedes and
applauds. “We had a fairly good success rate of catching most fires. The
success rate is in the 95 percent plus percentile.”
She said the service is also acting to reduce the continuity of fuel with
firebreaks and prescribed burns.
Grazing, measured in animal unit months or AUMs, has actually
increased on Forest Service land in the past decade, Higgins says, though
over the past few decades is down from about 300,000 AUMs to 240,000.
Meanwhile, the BLM reports grazing on public lands it controls has
declined from 18.2 million AUMs in 1954 to 8.2 million AUMs in 2010.
In addition, to the animals killed by wildfire, Gerber’s son Zachary,
a law student, writes in an article on SmokedBear.com, “Wildfires are
spewing pollutants into the air in quantities that are many times greater than
all of America’s industrial pollution combined.”
To further the education process, Smoked Bear is offering $70,000 in
scholarships, prizes and books to Nevada children and young adults in an
essay and poster contest. See the website for details.
(Next week: How Nevada’s wild lands have changed over the years.)
Thomas Mitchell is a longtime Nevadan. You may share your views with him
by emailing [email protected]. Read additional musings on his blog
at http://4thst8.wordpress.com.
www.pennypressnv.com
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 5
Commentary: Floyd Brown
Occupy Wall
Street A Menace,
Prepare For
Violence
Prepare for violence. We
remember this crowd.
The year was 1999 and the
anarchists descended on Seattle to
stop a meeting of the World Trade
Organization (WTO). We lived there
at the time.
Floyd was working as a host
at Hot Talk 570 KVI, located in
downtown near the “peaceful
protests” of the meeting of WTO
ministers. Seattle was excited
because it was an opportunity to
show the new high tech Seattle of the
1990’s that replaced the industrial
Seattle of the 1970’s. The City was
on the world’s stage.
Early pictures of the protests
reminded us of what you see
currently camped in Manhattan’s
Zuccotti Park. And as in the fall of
1999, the media is there to catalogue
the strange beliefs of those involved.
The Seattle protests were called
a peaceful group of human rights
leaders, students, environmental
groups, religious leaders, labor
rights activists’ etc., wanting fairer
trade with less exploitation. Sounds
like the group down on Wall Street.
Liberal political leaders of the
late 90’s were giving encouragement
to the protesters in a fashion similar
to the current leaders Nancy Pelosi,
Al Gore and Barack Obama are
carrying water for the current park
based protesters.
But there is a darker side to these
crowds as there was to the Seattle
crowds in 1999, and that is why we
are predicting violence to break out
soon if it hasn’t when you read this.
The Seattle protests started
peacefully, but they ended in a hail
of tear gas and rubber bullets. The
KVI office windows were smashed
in, and the steel and glass structures
that defined the high tech city were
laying shattered for blocks.
The protesters laid waste to
blocks of glass windows, and some
looted stores for extra “capitalist
goods.”
Over 600 protesters were
arrested and the battle in the court
rooms lasted for years as protesters
made allegations of police brutality
against the thin blue line that was
attempting to protect the property of
the “capitalist pigs,” as the protesters
called them.
Norm Stamper, the police chief
of Seattle during the 1999 WTO
protests, resigned soon afterward.
He was singled out and scapegoated
for the police response. But what are
police to do when a peaceful protest
morphs into a riot?
Zuccotti Park is privately
owned. The owners have leafleted
the squatters and asked them to
remove the illegal tarps and other
structures that have been erected as
part of the protests. Urine, feces and
other bodily fluids are now making
the park an unsanitary mess. These
owners have a right to ask police
to clear their private land of illegal
squatters.
We believe in peaceful protests,
and Floyd was arrested in 1983
protesting communism in front of
the Soviet Embassy in Washington
DC. But squatting on private land
is not speech and protesting. It is an
illegal act and if it is ignored it will
embolden the protesters to break
more serious laws.
It is time to send these young
socialists home to mom and dad
before they start smashing windows
and starting fires as they did in
Seattle in 1999.
FLOYD and MARY BETH
BROWN
The Penny Press Tips Its Cap To:
The IRS and the Metropolitan Las Vegas Police Department. Whatever
their other failings, they took one of Las Vegas' most notorious pimps,,
Micah Duncan, off the streets using the tax code. Granted it's only for 18
months because this guy could afford Oscar Goodman's former law partner,
but then there's three years of Federal supervised release. Presumably the
Federal parole system will make sure he doesn't go back to his cold ways.
The three Special Masters who did a creditable job of coming up with four
congressional districts despite the misguided yelping of Republicans. This
state would be a great place for a Republican Party if only it could find leaders with an IQ over 60.
The Penny Press Sends A Bronx Cheer
And A Bouquet of Weeds To:
Wells Fargo Bank and the Bank of America for being totally tone deaf and adding charges for the use of their debit cards. We're not saying that they can't do
it. Just that they are incredibly stupid for doing it. They want to encourage trust
for the banking system, not disgust. And the clowns who run these two "fine"
institutions can't see beyond next quarter's earnings. What will they do when this
stupid move results in fewer customers?
www.pennypressnv.com
OPINION
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 6
From The Publisher...
Smelly And Naked Is No Way To Get Things Done
At the time a smelly, unkempt mob (no, not Harry Reid’s 600,000 acres. The additional toll in pollution and animals killed
Washington “tourists”) descended on New York, presumably to is phenomenal.
change the way Wall Street does business, the Shovel Brigade 2
Enter the shovel brigade.
is starting to take shape in Elko, Nevada.
The Shovel Brigade isn’t a sexy movement like reforming Wall Years ago, the Forest Service started closing roads on “its” land
to motorized travel.
Street for the benefit of “the people”.
Its advocates don’t show up naked and sleep among feces and The Original Shovel Brigade was formed 11 years ago by local
urine in a private park in New York City. And they don’t call the citizens who used shovels (and the occasional Nye County owned
Cat D-8) to re-open those roads.
police “pigs”.
The mainstream media, with very few exceptions, give them very The battle against the Forest Service and the BLM had been joined.
little coverage.
Unlike the clowns in New York, these folks are ranchers,
But if you live in Nevada, you should be aware that much of your lawyers, businesspeople, housewives, outdoorsmen, hunters,
life is controlled by two relatively obscure Federal agencies, the your neighbors.
Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.
Under the Obama administration, the black hand of the Forest
What’s happening in Elko is very important to Nevada. The fact Service and the BLM has become particularly arbitrary and
that the Federal Government controls more than 90 per cent capricious, although even Republican Presidents have not acted
of the state’s landmass means that it also can stop economic to curb these agencies.
development dead in its tracks.
In Elko County, the local Forest Ranger arrogantly told the County
Commission that he was going to close hundreds of miles of roads
And, more often than not, it does.
and it was his sole decision.
Even when there is economic development, the Federal hegemony
of the state distorts business patterns and the ability of businesses His boss “temporarily” reassigned him to Clark County and has
promised a meeting with the County Commission. Seeing that,
to take advantage of the state’s abundant natural resources.
similarly upset rural county commissions from Eureka, Lander and
Gold skyrockets in value? Great. That should allow companies Nye counties now want to be at that meeting as well.
like Newmont, Barrack and lots of smaller guys to get mines in
With a Presidential election campaign in full swing right here in
production.
Nevada, it is only a matter of time before Nevadans make this a
Not so fast. Federal rules make it almost impossible to get a national issue.
mine permitted, up and running in less than five years. In fact,
it is easier to open a brothel in Nevada than a mine. No Federal If we nominate you and you get elected, who are you going to
appoint Secretary of Agriculture (Forest Service) and Interior
permitting of brothels is required.
(BLM)? Are you going to get them off Nevada’s back? How about
letting the counties do the permitting?
Influx of people? Need some subdivisions built?
You need to find the land somewhere and the Federal Government’s Memo to the clowns in New York:
thumb on the scale totally distorts the actual, functional value of
a home in Nevada, leading to overpriced houses and an eventual You want to change Wall Street? Smelly and naked is no way to
get things done. Elect people to office who will get things done.
bust.
Start with your County Commission.
Beef and wool prices high? Increase the size of the herds.
They did that in rural Nevada and you’re about to see how it
Not so fast. For some inexplicable reason, the Federal Government works.
doesn’t like cows and sheep grazing on “its” land. That has two
effects. First, fewer cows and sheep, less beef and wool, higher
FRED WEINBERG
prices for both. Second, no grazing means more fuel for fires and
we have gone from less than 25,000 acres a year of wildfires to
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 7
Commentary: Doug French
The Folly of Forecasting
President Obama’s mostly forgotten jobs package would reportedly create
1.9 million new jobs, a one-percentage-point drop in the unemployment rate,
and goose GDP by two percentage points. That was the prediction of Mark
Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. You see, he has a model. He
did a simulation, and presto — 1.9 million jobs!
Zandi practices what one of my undergraduate economics professors
told our class: “Predict often. That way, when you occasionally get lucky,
you can take credit for it.”
But the Moody’s man is on a cold streak. Zandi has predicted the
bottom of the housing market every year since 2006. And QE after QE was
supposed to right the good ship USS Economy.
Zandi and Alan Blinder figure the 2009 fiscal stimulus created 2.7 million
jobs and added $460 billion to gross domestic product. Unemployment
would be 11 percent today if the stimulus hadn’t been passed and 16.5
percent if neither the fiscal stimulus nor the banks’ rescue had been enacted,
according to Zandi and Blinder. “It’s pretty hard to deny that it had a
measurable impact,” Zandi said.
What must be hard for Zandi is deciding what numbers he will pull out
of the air to make such preposterous statements.
But math is the modern economist’s stock in trade. Anyone wanting to be a
PhD economist must endure semester after semester of high-level math. The
late Larry Sechrest wrote that at the University of Texas Arlington, “There
were four semesters of econometrics and two semesters of mathematical
economics. Moreover, virtually every class in the Ph.D. program required
that the student write an econometrically based term paper.”
An economics PhD student at North Carolina State posted on reddit
economics the courses in math he or she took to prepare: three semesters
of calculus and differential equations, linear algebra, upper and lower real
analysis, topology, optimization theory, probability theory and statistics
theory.
A student needs that entire math training to build robust models that will
produce quality predictions similar to those produced by those at the top of
the profession, like Mr. Zandi.
Math dominates the economics field, as Murray Rothbard explains,
“because of the pervading epistemology of positivism. Positivism is
essentially an interpretation of the methodology of physics ballooned into a
general theory of knowledge for all fields.”
Physics is believed to be a real science, Rothbard continues, while
“the “social sciences” are backward because they cannot measure, predict
exactly, etc. Therefore, they must adopt the method of physics in order to
become successful. And one of the keystones of physics, of course, is the
use of mathematics.”
But now physics, which is good at predicting the movements of
unmotivated particles, is itself being turned upside down.
Einstein’s theory of relativity claims that nothing can match the speed of
light — until a couple of weeks ago in an underground laboratory in Gran
Sasso, Italy. Neutrinos fired 454 miles from a super collider just outside
Geneva reached the lab 60 nanoseconds faster than light.
Charles Krauthammer writes that the Gran Sasso scientists immediately
put out the call for others physicists to replicate the experiment:
“This is not a couple of guys in a garage peddling cold fusion. This is
no crank wheeling a perpetual motion machine into the patent office. These
are the best researchers in the world using the finest measuring instruments,
having subjected their data to the highest levels of scrutiny, including six
months of cross-checking by 160 scientists from 11 countries.”
Just imagine, if Einstein’s relativity — a theory on which all of physics
has been built for a century — is upended! Well, a long series of theoretical
dominoes get tripped. Krauthammer mentions astronomy and cosmology.
But, what happens to the whole mathematical edifice that the current
economics profession rests on? How will the Mark Zandis of the world offer
predictions with a straight face?
Incredibly, Rothbard foresaw the prospect of speedy neutrinos many
years ago:
“As much as we may progress in the knowledge of the laws of physics,
our knowledge is never absolute, since the laws may always be revised by
more general laws and through further empirical testing.”
In economics, Rothbard explains, we know that human action is
motivated, while the “behavior” of stones is not. “Therefore, we may build
economics on the basis of axioms — such as the existence of human action
and the logical implications of action — which are originally known as
true.”
While from these axioms, laws can be deduced as true, there are
no “facts” in human action that can be tested. Rothbard explains that
mathematics is useful in physics “because of the axioms themselves, and the
laws deduced from them, are unknown and in fact meaningless.”
While cause is known in economics — human action using means to
achieve ends — cause in physics tends to, in Rothbard’s words, be “fragile.”
He explains that positivists replace cause with mutual determination, with
mathematical equations suited for depicting “a state of mutual determination
of factors, rather than singly determined cause and effect relations.”
To judge the value of mathematical economics one must assess the
assumptions embedded into the myriad of equations that these mainstream
prognosticators manipulate to produce their forecasts.
Invariably these assumptions “are few in number, simple, and wrong,”
writes Rothbard.
In his 1974 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, entitled “The Pretense of
Knowledge,” F.A. Hayek said that monetary and fiscal policies like those
championed by Mr. Zandi are the product of what he called the “scientistic
attitude,” but in fact is unscientific in that it “involves a mechanical and
uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in
which they have been formed.”
Mises wrote in Human Action, “There is no such thing as quantitative
economics” and unlike the particles in physics lab, Hayek believed, “such
complex phenomena as the market, which depend on the actions of many
individuals, all the circumstances which will determine the outcome of a
process … will hardly ever be fully known or measurable.”
So neutrinos or no neutrinos, the mathematical games economists play
are just so much flapdoodle being dished out to an eager audience of those
craving to know the future. The future is uncertain, except for knowing that
government interventions, based on some economist’s modeling, will make
matters worse.
DOUG FRENCH
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 8
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 9
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 10
Commentary: Albert Thomas
The Death Cross
Whenever the market has a serious break there is always an “expert”,
usually more than one, who proclaims it is a bear market.
It has only been very recently that a decline of 20% has been pretty
much accepted as being a bear. To those who own stocks it certainly feels
like one.
Our recent break of 20% has been proclaimed by some as a bear, but the
bear only lasted a few minutes before it took off to the upside for more than
300 DOW points from the low of the day. And for several days thereafter
new daily highs were made.
Is this a bear or not?
What the investor needs to know is the long term trend. No market goes
straight down – or up. If the trader looks only at the daily closing price it
looks more like a stair step in one direction or the other.
The experienced trader knows there are many methods of determining
market direction. Those who look at “valuations” find this does not work.
The direction of a stock is 60% influenced by the overall market direction
and 20% by the movement of the sector. That means valuation only has a
20% influence.
Another thing is the time horizon for the trader. Is he a long term or short
term trader? Floor traders like I was for 17 years only look out a few days
at the most. The Buy N Holders are not found there
For the investor who has a 401K or similar long term strategy he needs
to know a timing method that will show when to buy and when to be in cash.
Any fool can buy. It is the smart investor that knows when to sell. Bear
markets are usually 3 times faster going down than bull markets going up.
Being out of the market in cash is a position. No broker will ever say that.
A slow but reliable method for exiting stock market positions is called
the DEATH CROSS. When that signal is shown it means the market is
headed lower. There will be times when using this strategy the client will
lose money, but over the long run it has an excellent profit record. He will
always be out during 30, 40, 50% declines.
It is very simple. Any investor may implement it. It is not subjective.
The signal is “buy” or “sell”. Anyone can see it.
On the computer the investor displays 2 moving averages: 200-day and
50-day. Plot these against any major index such as the S&P500 or the Dow
Jones Industrial Average or Sector.
During a bull market the 50 line is above the 200 line. When the 50MA
line turns down and penetrates the 200MA line that is the time to exit all
positions. That is the Death Cross. So simple even a cave man can do it.
Don’t let your portfolio be buried under the Death Cross.
AL THOMAS
Al Thomas’ new book, “If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!”, 3rd edition,
has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his
simple 2-step method. The method made 10% during 2008. Read the first
chapter at www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he’s the man that
Wall Street does not want you to know.
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 11
Special Masters Release District Maps
By SEAN WHALEY
Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – The three special masters appointed by Carson City
District Judge James Todd Russell to redraw Nevada’s political boundaries
wasted no time on the charge, filing their report and proposed maps with the
court last week.
The proposed maps show that the masters opted to draw a congressional
district for urban Las Vegas, an area with a high Hispanic population.
Attorneys for the Republican Party wanted such a district. Attorneys
for Democrats had proposed districts that divided this area up among three
congressional districts. The district as drawn is 42.8 percent Hispanic.
The proposed boundaries for urban Congressional District 1 are sure to
provoke strong reaction from Democrats.
In their report, the special masters – Carson City Clerk-Recorder Alan
Glover, Las Vegas attorney Thomas Sheets and former legislative Research
Director Bob Erickson – said: “The special masters in creating a map
with four United States Congressional districts carefully considered the
issues associated with treatment of minority groups. The Special Masters
considered the facts presented, testimony, argument and the law as they
understood it.
“The Special Masters to the extent practicable have drawn the districts
to avoid dividing groups of common social, economic, cultural, or language
characteristics where it was not otherwise necessary to do so,” they said.
The special masters also released proposed maps for Nevada’s 63
legislative districts. The map for the state Senate reflects the shift of
population south since the 2000 census. The maps include detail of the Las
Vegas area.
The maps for the 42 Assembly districts show a similar shift. The masters
also provided detail of the proposed Las Vegas area Assembly districts.
In filing their report, the special masters noted that: “The state’s
Supreme Court will likely ultimately determine legal, jurisdictional and
procedural requirements and whether the work that has been done by the
special masters is of assistance in seeking that redistricting issues were
expediently considered.”
The panel wasted no time. Public hearings on the redistricting issue just
concluded on Tuesday. The proposed maps were not due to Russell until
Oct. 21. Russell indicated in a previous order he would decide by midNovember on whether to accept the maps as proposed or send them back for
refinement. But a new order says he will hear the matter on Oct. 27.
The Nevada Supreme Court is already involved in the redistricting
controversy. It has scheduled oral arguments for Nov. 14 on questions raised
by Secretary of State Ross Miller on whether it is the responsibility of the
Legislature to draw the political boundaries, not the courts.
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 12
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 13
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 14
Commentary: Chuck Muth
Occupying Loserville, USA
Well, I didn’t make it to the Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Las Vegas
protests, but this week I did venture through the Occupy Inner Harbor in
Baltimore and Occupy McPherson Square in Washington, DC. And I had
to break out the ol’ Thesaurus to come up with all the appropriate words
to describe the “massive” (had to be at least 3-4 dozen “occupiers” at each
location!) contingent of protesters I witnessed at each venue. Let’s see…
Losers. Riff-raff. Misfits. Hippie wannabes. Epic fails. Dorks. Morons.
Boobs. Schlemiels. Schlimazels. Fools. Lamers. Duds. Failures. Flops. And
Stooges. Then again, I’m sugarcoating it.
On the other hand, God bless them. These folks are unwittingly doing
more to help make Barack Obama a one-term president than…well, Barack
Obama himself.
Heck, we already know Republicans and conservatives are united in their
desire to defeat The Chosen One next year, but this rag-tag team of unhappy
campers is helping cement in the minds of the all-important “independent”
voters that having a Community Organizer-in-Chief ain’t gonna create jobs
or prosperity.
I crossed paths with the “occupation” in Baltimore while taking my
11-year-old daughter and her 7-year-old cousin on a “Girls Day Out” to the
Baltimore Aquarium. The first yahoo we encountered was holding a sign
reading “My family is almost bankrupt.” I tried (no, really, I did) to hold my
tongue, but I just couldn’t help myself.
“Um, maybe if you’d look for a job instead of standing here on a street
corner holding up a stupid sign your family wouldn’t be facing bankruptcy.”
“I’m in construction. There are no jobs.”
“Um, how about bussing tables?”
“Bus tables? I’m a skilled carpenter. I ain’t bussing no tables.”
“Then I ain’t feeling sorry for you.”
It went downhill from there. So we just kept walking through Loserville
– past the pony-tailed guy playing with his hula-hoop, the bongo guy, the
rocket surgeon crayoning hand-made signs attacking corporate greed, and
other assorted circus-like performers.
But those guys were pikers compared to their DC brethren.
Now, to be fair the DC crowd might have been uglier and smellier
simply because the tent-city occupiers” were camping out on territory
usually reserved for the capital’s homeless (formerly known as “bums”
before PC ruled the roost) and the lure of free food – even though it appeared
to be “organic” – helped make allies out of, well, natural allies.
Losers of a feather flock together.
Now, if it seems I’m being harsh, tough. Class warfare whining, bellyaching, kvetching, moaning and groaning about freebies and entitlements
may be a God-given free speech right, but it’s not a trait most productive
Americans choose to support. And if next November’s presidential election
is a choice between these “occupiers” and the “tea partiers,” I’m liking our
chances.
CHUCK MUTH
Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of
NevadaNewsandViews.com. He may be reached at chuck@citizenoutreach.
com.
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 15
Pet Of The Week
Adopt This Pet !
SAGE
Call
702-672-7204
Sage was found wandering in the desert. This sweet, abandoned
Doberman deserves a better life! She is a mature red and tan
lady about 8 years old, but active, playful, full of life and wanting
desperately to have a family. She is very social and gets along
well with other dogs. She is spayed, up to date on all of her shots
and microchipped. If you are interested in giving Sage a forever
home, fill out an application.
BILLY
Call
702-672-7204
Billy is a sweet blue Doberman about 3 years old. His expressiveness
is punctuated by a striking wrinkle in the middle of his forehead.
Just watch the dreamy look on his face when you rub his ears.
This active youngster weighs 70 pounds and will need obedience
training that his previous owners neglected to provide. He is eager
to learn and once his high energy is properly managed, Billy will
be a loving addition to any family. Billy gets along well with female
dogs and could easily share his home with one.
702-4180433
THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 20, 2011 PAGE 16
October 2011
Northern Nevada Life and Homes
NOW AVAILABLE FREE
ON NEWSSTANDS
Winnemucca • Battle Mountain • Lovelock • Surrounding Areas